The Philadelphia School District can’t dodge a First Amendment case with qualified immunity, the Third Circuit has ruled.
The school district and several administrators who are named as defendants in the suit had filed an interlocutory appeal after the district court denied their motions for summary judgment based on their claim to qualified immunity in a case brought by a former administrator, Francis Dougherty, who alleged that he was fired in violation of the First Amendment and Pennsylvania’s whistleblower law after he revealed a no-bid contract to the press.
